1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to providing security in communications involving computer systems. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus to facilitate virtual transport layer security on a virtual network.
2. Related Art
As computer systems continue to proliferate, designers have established many methods to facilitate communication among these computer systems. Recent attention has been focused on peer-to-peer communications on a virtual network. One example of these peer-to-peer virtual networks is Project JXTA, originally proposed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. of Palo Alto, Calif. Project JXTA and other virtual networks are designed to work with a multitude of underlying protocols that may not include robust transport facilities such as TCP/IP.
Establishing secure communications on these virtual networks can also be challenging because there may be no public key infrastructure (PKI) for establishing cryptographic session keys. Even when a PKI is available, many peers on the virtual network might not require the extremely high level of security associated with the PKI and therefore may not want to incur the costs associated with obtaining a PKI certificate. These peer-to-peer virtual networks do, however, require some level of security within a closed group of peers. This level of security needs only sufficient strength to provide protection for the data being transferred between peers.
Peer-to-peer communications on the virtual network may not be reliable because there is no mechanism to guarantee delivery of all parts of the message or to guarantee the proper order of received records. Since peer-to-peer communications on a virtual network are not reliable, messages that have been encrypted may not be readable at the destination. Dropping or changing one bit of a message may cause the rest of that message to be undecipherable.
What is needed is a method and an apparatus to facilitate virtual transport layer security on a virtual network without the problems listed above.